The proposed Senate budget would reduce the appropriation to the Justice and Public Safety (JPS) budget by $46 million, or 2 percent, over the continuation budget. Compared to the House budget proposal, the Senate budget proposal would cut the JPS section by 25.6 million more dollars.

Nearly $40 million of the cuts facing the JPS agencies would be in the form of management flexibility cuts, which are designed to allow the agencies to determine where the reductions are taken. The House budget identified specific cuts and did not make any management flexibility cuts to the JPS section. As outlined below, the Senate proposal identifies 6 specific changes from the continuation budget other than the management flexibility cuts. The only new item in the Senate proposal compared to the House proposal is $3 million in non-recurring operating funds to the Department of Justice and this funding comes from department receipts.

Like the House proposal, the Senate proposal would use funds from the National Mortgage Settlement to offset a reduction to Conference of District Attorneys administration budget and would also eliminate all state funding for the Consumer Protection Division, which would become fully receipt-supported. Also like the House proposal, the Senate proposal would remove the Family Court program from continuation review and transfer the Geodetic Survey Section from Department of Environmental and Natural Resources to the Department of Public Safety. Both proposals would transfer $5 million in non-recurring funds from the Statewide Misdemeanant Fund to the Division of Adult Correction and would make no changes to the continuation budget for the Office of Indigent Defense Services.